- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN photojournalist Danish Siddiqui, who reportedly died in a crossfire between Afghanistan security forces and the Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan, earlier this month, was actually “brutally murdered” by the extremist group which has seen a resurgence in the country as the US-led western troops begin to pull out.
According to an opinion piece in US’s conservative Washington Examiner written by former US defence secretary adviser Michael Rubin and titled ‘Don’t whitewash details of photojournalist Danish Siddiqui’s murder’, “The circumstances of Siddiqui’s death are now clear. He was not simply killed in a crossfire, nor was he simply collateral damage; rather, he was brutally murdered by the Taliban.”
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Siddiqui reportedly caught between the clashes between the Afghan security forces and Taliban in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar bordering Pakistan. His body was later brought to India and laid to rest at the Jamia Millia Islamia graveyard in New Delhi two days after his death. Siddiqui was part of the Reuters team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018.
Slain photojournalist Danish Siddiqui captured people behind stories
According to the piece by Rubin which came out on Thursday (29), the Afghanistan authorities said the Indian photojournalist travelled with the Afghan National Army to cover the clashes.
Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Danish Siddiqui killed in Afghanistan
“When they got to within one-third of a mile of the customs post, a Taliban attack split the team, with the commander and a few men separated from Siddiqui, who remained with three other Afghan troops,” Rubin, who is currently a resident scholar at Washington DC-based think tank American Enterprise Institute and specialises in countries like Iran and Turkey and the broader affairs in the Middle East region, said.
The report said during the assault, Siddiqui, 38, was injured and it made him and his team take shelter at a mosque where he got first aid. It cited local investigations to say that the Taliban attacked the mosque only because Siddiqui was there.
“As word spread, however, that a journalist was in the mosque, the Taliban attacked. The local investigation suggests the Taliban attacked the mosque only because of Siddiqui’s presence there,” Rubin said.
He then claimed that Siddiqui was alive when the Taliban caught him and after verifying his identity, they executed him and those who were with him. He also said that the commander of the Afghan National Army and others in Siddiqui’s team died while trying to protect him.
Rubin added, “While a widely circulated public photograph shows Siddiqui’s face recognizable, I reviewed other photographs and a video of Siddiqui’s body provided to me by a source in the Indian government that show the Taliban beat Siddiqui around the head and then riddled his body with bullets.”
Rubin said Siddiqui was doing a risky job but had taken the precautions that are required. He said the Afghan National Army allowed Siddiqui to cover the fighting because they believed they would win but it was not to be.
While the former US administrative official said the Taliban’s act of executing and mutilating Siddique flouted the rules of war and they gave the message that western journalists are not welcome in Afghanistan, he also questioned the US state department over its alleged pretension that Siddiqui’s death was just a tragic accident.
He also took a dig at the Joe Biden administration of the US saying it was whitewashing the Taliban crimes instead of facing the reality. “To acknowledge the fact that the Taliban executed Siddiqui and that the photographer’s death was not a tragic accident would contradict White House spin,” Rubin said.
